Thursday, January 29, 2015

My Journey as a Newly Published Author

Well, it has been two weeks since I published my first book Willakaville. I have learned quite a bit along the way.

Some things were easier than I thought they would be. I never imagined that you could self-publish to so many places and so easily. You just fill out the forms and upload your file. The difficult part was getting the format correct. But once I figured that out, the rest was not too bad. Now, all my files are set up for the next book.

I did not realize how much time you need to promote your book. I have been spending hours researching blogs, marketing ideas, news channels, creating a blog and Facebook page and keeping them updated. It is almost a full time job. Then you need to contact the news media, other bloggers, beg people to review your book, submit author interviews, find people to connect with on Twitter. I still haven't figured it all out yet, but I think I have a good start. Hopefully, I can get to the point where it only takes a few minutes a day to maintain all of it.

Writing and illustrating the book was the fun part. It took me about six months total. The boring part is going back and reading and editing, re-editing and re-re-editing. My book probably could use even more edit work, but at some point you say enough is enough. I am really hoping to get some reviews back so that I know how I did. Friends and family have said it is good, but that doesn't really count (nobody wants to tell their friend that their book is horrible).

In all, it has been fun and I have learned a great deal about publishing and promoting a book. I am still learning, but I am open to sharing any of my knowledge with anyone who asks. I will also try to add informative links over there ------->

Have a good one - Matt

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Future Issues Our Children Will Face

Kids have it easy these days. Or do they? Maybe they will never need to read a map or even drive a car in bad traffic. However, they will face many new challenges as the world become increasingly more complex. I would like to start a discussion about this subject to learn more about it. My plan is to take these issues and present them to young readers in my upcoming Willakville books.

The question I would like to ask anyone replying to this is: What new challenges will our children face that we are not aware of as a society?


When answering this question please think about unique possibilities. I already have a list of common issues, such as; bullying, fairness, freedom, disease, overpopulation, crime, pollution, etc. What I want are those things that we don’t normally think about (like genetic modification for example).

Monday, January 19, 2015

Willakaville is Now in Print

Now you can get Willakaville in print or ebook on Amazon. Also sold on Nook, Kobo and Lulu. 

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Book preview

Free 3 Chapter Preview. Willakaville 3 Chapter Excerpt

There is also a tab at the top left of this page that will take you there.


Willakaville.

Hello - I just finished writing my first book Willakaville. It is a children's book about a small town where crazy things happen. I am hoping to get people interested in the book and receive feedback on how it can be improved or ideas for a second book.